This spring semester I took Foundations of College writing with Dr.Sherry. In this class we focused on topics such as how to view society in a different way and we also focused on what education means to us. In this portfolio I will show some of the papers I have done to meet the goals that we have discussed. The first paper that I wrote was about how students benefit from having a part time job while attending college and also how to balance their time. I took some interviews of students to show how they balance time in between work and college. For my second project, I then took that information and transformed it into different genres to meet the needs of students, parents, and businesses. My last project, I talked about personal stories and explained how that has made an impact on my definition of what being educated means.
Goal A. Students will be able to compose for particular audiences and purposes.
This goal means that we should be able to transform our information into different genres to fulfill the audiences needs. For example, students would be more interested in watching a power point than reading a newsletter. Therefore, I would transport my research into a power point to catch the attention of the students. For this goal I have chosen to share my flyer that I made for parents and a satire for college students. I used the information from my first project to make both of these genres. The flyer below that I made for the parents has some information on it about the benefits of college students having a part time job.
The point that I am making in the flyer above is that there are more pros than cons as to having a job while attending college. I used a flyer so it would be a fast and easy read for parents of students, getting right to the point. My goal from this flyer was to have parents realize that their children should not be just getting money from them, but also having their own income as well.
In my satire (below) I used the information from my clue project as well. I transformed this information into a flyer, however this flyer is mocking the way students balance their time between school and work hours. In this satire I was trying to show college students how ridiculous it sounds when they make excuses to not study or complain that they do not have any money. By turning my research paper from my clue project into a satire, I was able to catch a certain audience for a certain purpose.
Goal B. Students are able to compose using language and conventions appropriate to genre.
For this goal, I felt that using my clue project is the best option. The clue project was my first project, or research paper in this class. I interviewed students and wrote down a time log of how they scheduled their day. I mainly focused on student who has jobs so that I would be able to see how much time they still had to study. I divided this paper in different sections based on problem, background, method, findings, and conclusion. This goal is about writing using rules or style. This paper is the best to chose for this goal because using these dividers, it helped keep the paper organized and well detailed.
Writing this paper helped me learn the concept of language and conventions appropriate to the genre because it showed me how to write a college research paper like how they should be. Also, it helped me learn the skills to write a well written paper in the future as well. I was not used to writing this way before this class because in my other writing classes professors would tell me to pick a topic and then write a research paper about it. However, in this class we learned how to break it all down and explain the problem.
Goal C. Students will be able to read, select, and use evidence critically to formulate and support arguments.
This clue means to find, evaluate and use information that will help support a point. I feel like the clue project fits this goal as well. For the clue project I had to research information that would support the point I was trying to make. I used a quote in this paper to show students how other people feel about having a job and going to college. One quote was from a former college student. She discusses why it looks good for students to have a job. For example:
In McMullen’s article she claims, “Apart from showing your time management, organizational and prioritizing skills, a college job shows future hiring managers that you have grit, willingness to do the dirty work and that you can balance a full load of both school and work."
This quote, I feel is inspiring for students to read because it may make them realize how important this could be for their future. I wanted to use this quote to show students that this is highly looked upon as a great thing.
Also, in my clue project I used the three INs that we learned in class. The three INs are Introduce, Insert, and Interpret. This is a good way to organize my information. For example:
All of Carr, McMullen, and the article Working Full-time and Studying Full-time: Is It Possible have some things in common about balancing this lifestyle and have a similar pattern to how they see things as well. (1) For example in McMullen’s article she aims, “Apart from showing your time management, organizational and prioritizing skills, a college job shows future hiring managers that you have grit, willingness to do the dirty work and that you can balance a full load of both school and work," she had gotten this quote from, Brad Karsh, president of JB Training Solutions and co-author of "Manager 3.0: A Millennial's Guide to Rewriting the Rules of Management." (2) This means that when a college students graduates college, having a job will look highly professional. This benefits the college student in many ways because it shows their future bosses how they can manage time of their own and handle a big workload as well. (3)
1- Introduce 2-Insert 3-Interpret
I introduced the quote, which means that I explain would the author was talking about first. Then I inserted the quote into my paper and then I talked about what it meant to me.
Goal D. Students will be able to interpret and compose in a variety of media and print/ non-print genres.
This goal means to read and create in multiple ways using multiple forms. This is important because you need to know how to transform your information into other presentations such as a flyer or a satire as I showed above. I again chose to show my ear project for this goal. For the ear project I used C.R.A.P principles to make sure the information I gathered is composed in a way that is suitable and organized. I used this to better understand the information in different ways. The C.R.A.P principles stand for contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity. In my satire below I organized it using these principles to make it stand out and also easy to read and follow. I also bolded some words to catch the attention of the audience.
For my flyer (below) I used these same principles to also make it stand out and easy to read. I used bullet points for the proximity and alignment and added contrast by bolding words. I also used some colors more than once to show repetition.
These two projects show that I used these C.R.A.P principles to catch the audiences attention. Also, this shows that I took the same information and made it into other genres for different audience members. With just a little difference of how you present your information, it can make a big difference when it comes to grabbing the audiences attention. I did not realize how effective using the C.R.A.P principles could be until I have learned them in this class. It makes the reading more fun and easy to follow.
Goal E. Students will be able to discuss and apply appropriate writing processes both individually and in collaborative contexts.
This goal means to make revisions both by themselves and with others. For my projects students read my work and gave me some feed back which then I used to revise my paper. Using the feed back, I then may have added information to my projects or fixed some common mistakes. It was nice to get other peoples opinions on my paper. For the revision we would get in a group of three and read over each others papers to make corrections. Then we would fill out a peer review sheet to write down the tips that our other classmates gave us to improve our papers.
This sheet is great to work with because instead of having to remember what your classmates said about your paper you could just write it down. Also, you set goals for yourself on what you want to revise before even getting feed back. Therefore you can tell you classmates to focus on a certain part of your paper that you have been having trouble with. Then you can write down how you will address these revisions into the paper.
Once I got the peer review for my tell project, which is a paper we wrote telling stories about our past, present and future, I then revised my paper. In this paper you pick one main idea, topic, or artifact that links all three of the stories together and then explain what it means to you to be educated. The feedback helped me improve this paper because I had trouble talking about my future. By reading other classmates papers and hearing their comments I easily revised the future part of my paper.
By learning these five goals I become a better writer all around. However, there is never enough to learn, therefore as I go through my college years I will take these goals into consideration. Not only did this help me with college papers but also later for after college. For being a Business Management major I am going to have to convert information into other genres and these goals will get me to where I need to be.
Cassandra Host
Dr.SherryFoundations of College Writing
This spring semester I took Foundations of College writing with Dr.Sherry. In this class we focused on topics such as how to view society in a different way and we also focused on what education means to us. In this portfolio I will show some of the papers I have done to meet the goals that we have discussed. The first paper that I wrote was about how students benefit from having a part time job while attending college and also how to balance their time. I took some interviews of students to show how they balance time in between work and college. For my second project, I then took that information and transformed it into different genres to meet the needs of students, parents, and businesses. My last project, I talked about personal stories and explained how that has made an impact on my definition of what being educated means.
Goal A. Students will be able to compose for particular audiences and purposes.
This goal means that we should be able to transform our information into different genres to fulfill the audiences needs. For example, students would be more interested in watching a power point than reading a newsletter. Therefore, I would transport my research into a power point to catch the attention of the students. For this goal I have chosen to share my flyer that I made for parents and a satire for college students. I used the information from my first project to make both of these genres. The flyer below that I made for the parents has some information on it about the benefits of college students having a part time job.
The point that I am making in the flyer above is that there are more pros than cons as to having a job while attending college. I used a flyer so it would be a fast and easy read for parents of students, getting right to the point. My goal from this flyer was to have parents realize that their children should not be just getting money from them, but also having their own income as well.
In my satire (below) I used the information from my clue project as well. I transformed this information into a flyer, however this flyer is mocking the way students balance their time between school and work hours. In this satire I was trying to show college students how ridiculous it sounds when they make excuses to not study or complain that they do not have any money. By turning my research paper from my clue project into a satire, I was able to catch a certain audience for a certain purpose.
Goal B. Students are able to compose using language and conventions appropriate to genre.
For this goal, I felt that using my clue project is the best option. The clue project was my first project, or research paper in this class. I interviewed students and wrote down a time log of how they scheduled their day. I mainly focused on student who has jobs so that I would be able to see how much time they still had to study. I divided this paper in different sections based on problem, background, method, findings, and conclusion. This goal is about writing using rules or style. This paper is the best to chose for this goal because using these dividers, it helped keep the paper organized and well detailed.
Writing this paper helped me learn the concept of language and conventions appropriate to the genre because it showed me how to write a college research paper like how they should be. Also, it helped me learn the skills to write a well written paper in the future as well. I was not used to writing this way before this class because in my other writing classes professors would tell me to pick a topic and then write a research paper about it. However, in this class we learned how to break it all down and explain the problem.
Goal C. Students will be able to read, select, and use evidence critically to formulate and support arguments.
This clue means to find, evaluate and use information that will help support a point. I feel like the clue project fits this goal as well. For the clue project I had to research information that would support the point I was trying to make. I used a quote in this paper to show students how other people feel about having a job and going to college. One quote was from a former college student. She discusses why it looks good for students to have a job. For example:
This quote, I feel is inspiring for students to read because it may make them realize how important this could be for their future. I wanted to use this quote to show students that this is highly looked upon as a great thing.
Also, in my clue project I used the three INs that we learned in class. The three INs are Introduce, Insert, and Interpret. This is a good way to organize my information. For example:
This means that when a college students graduates college, having a job will look highly professional. This benefits the college student in many ways because it shows their future bosses how they can manage time of their own and handle a big workload as well. (3)
1- Introduce
2-Insert
3-Interpret
I introduced the quote, which means that I explain would the author was talking about first. Then I inserted the quote into my paper and then I talked about what it meant to me.
Goal D. Students will be able to interpret and compose in a variety of media and print/ non-print genres.
This goal means to read and create in multiple ways using multiple forms. This is important because you need to know how to transform your information into other presentations such as a flyer or a satire as I showed above. I again chose to show my ear project for this goal. For the ear project I used C.R.A.P principles to make sure the information I gathered is composed in a way that is suitable and organized. I used this to better understand the information in different ways. The C.R.A.P principles stand for contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity. In my satire below I organized it using these principles to make it stand out and also easy to read and follow. I also bolded some words to catch the attention of the audience.
For my flyer (below) I used these same principles to also make it stand out and easy to read. I used bullet points for the proximity and alignment and added contrast by bolding words. I also used some colors more than once to show repetition.
These two projects show that I used these C.R.A.P principles to catch the audiences attention. Also, this shows that I took the same information and made it into other genres for different audience members. With just a little difference of how you present your information, it can make a big difference when it comes to grabbing the audiences attention. I did not realize how effective using the C.R.A.P principles could be until I have learned them in this class. It makes the reading more fun and easy to follow.
Goal E. Students will be able to discuss and apply appropriate writing processes both individually and in collaborative contexts.
This goal means to make revisions both by themselves and with others. For my projects students read my work and gave me some feed back which then I used to revise my paper. Using the feed back, I then may have added information to my projects or fixed some common mistakes. It was nice to get other peoples opinions on my paper. For the revision we would get in a group of three and read over each others papers to make corrections. Then we would fill out a peer review sheet to write down the tips that our other classmates gave us to improve our papers.
This sheet is great to work with because instead of having to remember what your classmates said about your paper you could just write it down. Also, you set goals for yourself on what you want to revise before even getting feed back. Therefore you can tell you classmates to focus on a certain part of your paper that you have been having trouble with. Then you can write down how you will address these revisions into the paper.
Once I got the peer review for my tell project, which is a paper we wrote telling stories about our past, present and future, I then revised my paper. In this paper you pick one main idea, topic, or artifact that links all three of the stories together and then explain what it means to you to be educated. The feedback helped me improve this paper because I had trouble talking about my future. By reading other classmates papers and hearing their comments I easily revised the future part of my paper.
By learning these five goals I become a better writer all around. However, there is never enough to learn, therefore as I go through my college years I will take these goals into consideration. Not only did this help me with college papers but also later for after college. For being a Business Management major I am going to have to convert information into other genres and these goals will get me to where I need to be.